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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24903607">Apotheosis</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/anastasiapullingteeth/pseuds/anastasiapullingteeth'>anastasiapullingteeth</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>My Revolution [9]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals - Team StarKid</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Apocalypse, Aromantic Character, Autism Spectrum, Horror Comedy, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Queerplatonic Relationships, Self-Indulgent, Spoilers, squish</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 02:55:28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,585</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24903607</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/anastasiapullingteeth/pseuds/anastasiapullingteeth</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>After a meteor hits the tiny town of Hatchetfield, the people become mindless singing-zombies obsessed with forcing Paul to sing about what he wants. The problem is... he doesn't want anything. Or anyone. Not even her. Not like that.</p><p>~*~</p><p>Or: What if <i>The Guy Who Didn’t Like Musicals</i> was about two aros in a world infected by amatonormativity?</p><p>The Apotheosis is upon us…</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Paul Matthews &amp; Emma Perkins</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>My Revolution [9]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2147733</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Aggressively Arospec Week '20</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Apotheosis</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This is exactly what it sounds like: a reimagine of Team StarKid's musical with an aromantic twist. I'm really not sorry... Ok, maybe a little bit.</p><p>Inspired by an aro!Paul headcanon I saw on Tumblr and part of <a href="https://aggressivelyarospec.tumblr.com/post/618195007140233216/happy-anniversary-to-us-this-year-is-the-fifth">@aggressivelyarospec's fandom week!</a></p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>“Love is like hearing a choir of angels sing.”</em>
</p><p>Paul was eight the first time he’d heard those words from his 3rd grade teacher and, from that moment onwards, Paul associated the music with love. Knowing this, it shouldn't be to anyone's surprise that, by the time he turned sixteen in 2003, he was convinced he was tone-deaf: while all his classmates got too much into bands and girlfriends, he just couldn’t find the appeal in none of those. Now, it wasn’t he didn’t like music, he liked music, he just didn’t like to sing or <em>seeing</em> people singing. Or dancing. The whole experience was really uncomfortable, to be honest, but he wasn’t entirely sure why exactly, so he just discarded it as another of his many “quirks”, as his mother called them, and moved on.</p><p>2003 was also the year he saw <em>her</em> for the very first time.</p><p>It was the opening (and closing) night of Hatchetfield High greatest hit so far: a school production of the famous musical film, <em>Brigadoon</em>, and the teachers decided it was a good idea to bus them over to watch the show. It was cruel beyond human compression and Paul was surprised to find they were indeed capable of such villainy, but he thought deep down they kinda deserved it for studying at Sycamore High, which, by the way, didn’t have a theater program.</p><p>In fact, Sycamore High didn’t have a lot of things, including students. Paul imagined it’d been built back in the day when people were having babies by the dozen, which justified two high schools in such a small town, but as time passed and the families became smaller due to everything being economically unaffordable, the old building became something of a nuisance in the Hatchetfield landscape. Everyone hated them, including themselves.</p><p>Since most of the kids went to Hatchetfield High to ensure a promising future, Sycamore was reserved for the troubled kids or, in Paul’s case, kids with lazy parents that didn’t want to drive the extra miles every morning to drop off their offsprings. Sycamore was two blocks away from Paul’s house and his dad had no qualms sending him there on foot, but Paul didn’t mind; it was ten glorious minutes in which he didn’t have to pretend he cared about what the other kids were up to. He almost didn’t care the school was shit. Yeah, Sycamore lacked lots of things: competent teachers, extracurricular activities, a winner football team… and <em>her</em>.</p><p>“Bonnie”, as Paul had started to refer to the girl playing <em>Bonnie Jean</em> in the <em>Brigadoon</em> production because he’d been too distracted to hear her actual name, had caught Paul’s eye during the play. It was the first musical he ever saw and he hated it, but “Bonnie” had a way to do everything that resonated with Paul. She was different, like she was <em>outside</em> of their world, but still managed to fit in somehow: she was playing their game out of choice, not because she needed to to get by. Paul couldn’t say the same about himself.</p><p>While the other kids at his school were outspoken and gladly engaged in group activities, Paul was... well, he seemed mostly unmotivated, or that's what his teachers said. There was nothing he really liked to do and could share with the other kids, and his tendency to say the first thing that came to mind (paired up with his uncensored honesty) baffled everyone he came across, so making friends wasn't one of his strongest suits.</p><p>He'd tried. Many times. But it was just so tiring he'd simply given up pretty soon. However, people still tried to engaged him in things, so he discovered that keeping silent and barely paying attention to what his classmates said accounted for half the energy wasted and got him into less trouble. They were happy, he was mostly calm and it also meant they'd leave him alone in half the time, which worked quite well for him.</p><p>“Bonnie” had looked just as tired of everyone’s bullshit, on and down the stage, and Paul had felt oddly fascinated by her challenging attitude; he wished he could just walk there and talk to her, even if he wasn't sure what he wanted to say.</p><p>“Oh, honey. You just have a crush,” his mom said when Paul told her about “Bonnie” later that day. “She must be a really pretty girl if she managed to get you out of your bubble,” she added, unnecessarily, if Paul was honest. “See? That trip to Hatchetfield High wasn’t so bad after all, was it?”</p><p>It had been. Paul had really hated that damn musical.</p><p> </p><p>He didn’t saw “Bonnie” again for years until a few months before his 30th birthday and, by then, he’d completely forgotten about her. He was walking to work one morning when he thought he’d seen her across the street entering Beanies, the local coffee shop that was mostly always empty because their coffee was shit. That alone wasn’t strange (or maybe it was, he didn’t know her, maybe she liked bad coffee), but what seemed odd was she was carrying a green apron and looking particularly annoyed, like she really hated to be there.</p><p>Paul hadn’t gone to Beanies in years (there was a Starbucks closer to the office that served all kinds of overpriced coffee very early in the morning he could buy on his way to work), but he was curios. He thought of redirecting his steps towards the small coffee shop, but stopped mid motion, changing his mind. Going into a woman's work just to see if it was who he thought she was… was that considered stalkerish? He just wanted to take a look, but… Maybe not? He balled his hands into fits and bumped them one against the other gently, deep in thought. "Yeah, maybe not a good idea," he said under his breath, resuming his path.</p><p>Maybe someone at work knew about her, but since he didn't know her actual name, he had no idea how to ask them without being misinterpreted. Besides, Bill was always talking about his estranged daughter to pay attention to something else, and Charlotte was too worried about hiding her failing marriage to really listening to him. And Ted... Well, he was a douchebag. Paul didn't want him to know about "Bonnie". He guessed he'd have to leave it to time or fate, or whoever controlled that sort of thing.</p><p>The next day, Paul had barely set foot in the office when Ted took him by the arm and dragged him out again. "Uhm, Ted? Where are we going?" Paul asked, trying to free his arm from Ted's vice-like grip.</p><p>"Beanies. There's a new girl there and I'ma hit on her."</p><p>Aww, fuck. Well, he guessed he could do with a black coffee.</p><p>"Bonnie" was indeed there when Paul entered the coffee shop, waiting distractedly behind the counter and looking mostly bored. Paul took a deep breath, approached the counter... and let Ted place the order for both their drinks before walking to the closest corner to look out of the window. Maybe next time, he told himself. Next time he'd talk to her.</p><p> </p><p>It took Paul almost a year of daily visits to Beanies to muster up the courage to talk to "Bonnie" and, when he finally decided to, she was being harassed by a rude customer. <em>Perfect timing, Paul.</em></p><p>"You know what? I'm never coming back here again. That sign's bullshit!" the man yelled, pointing at the little sign on the counter that read <strong>Tip For A Song!</strong> and that had presumably been the reason for his anger.</p><p>"Oh my God, so mean!" "Bonnie" mocked before giving the guy the finger and Paul had to actually bite his tongue to not laugh at that one.</p><p>The man felt personally offended by it though, so he stormed out of the shop, taking his one-dollar tip with him and making a show of it. Paul thought he was overreacting, but when "Bonnie"'s boss —who's name Paul couldn't remember despite the fact he was sure he'd heard it before at least once— came out of the back room and began to scold the young barista about her attitude, he had to reconsider his previous assumption. People really got emotional over such petty things, didn't they?</p><p>"Look, can't Zoey do the singing? I don't like it," "Bonnie" complained and that made Paul break his self-imposed promise of not listening to their conversation because, man, he could really, <em>really</em> understand why she didn't want to do that. Why would anyone, to be honest? Paul couldn't think of anything more embarrassing than that.</p><p>"Huh, okay. So then you must not like having a job here then, hm." the boss said, staring at "Bonnie" with her piercing, blue eyes. Paul lowered his head, feeling completely out of place but being unable to leave out of fear of causing even more problems to "Bonnie". "You know what? Just don't even bother showing up for your next shift," the boss (boy, he really was bad with names, wasn't he?) warned and both Paul and "Bonnie" lifted their heads in mid panic.</p><p>"What? Are you serious?" "Bonnie" asked, shocked. "Wait, wait wait! I- I will do the singing."</p><p>"Yeah, you will," the boss threatened. "Now move your ass, you got a line."</p><p>Paul saw "Bonnie" taking a deep breath, relieved of having avoided a disaster, and turning around to face him with a trained smile on her face. She was calmer now, but her eyes showed she was two seconds away from murdering someone and Paul only hoped it wasn't him. "Hi, can I help you?" she asked, politely.</p><p>"Yeah, I got an easy one for you: just a cup of black coffee."</p><p>Although that was his usual order (how could they expect him to choose from all the different options?! It was simply impossible!), he secretly hoped he could give her a little break from all the chaos she was subjected to in there. Paul couldn't really imagine what it was like to work in a place like Beanies and having to deal with insufferable people all day, every day. He could barely handle the sensory hell that was his office, retail seemed like torture to him, but "Bonnie" did that at least eight hours a day with barely any complaints, and that was part of why he admired her so much.</p><p>She had to put up with a lot of shit and now, on top of it, her boss was forcing her to sing for a bunch of ungrateful assholes that felt entitled to her time and dignity just because they tipped her a dollar. Paul at least had Bill at work and a nice, little cubicle he could hide in when he just wasn't in the mood to talk to people; "Bonnie" didn't have that and, now, didn't even have the dollar that had caused all the drama earlier. Paul rummaged inside his pocket and pulled out a five dollar bill he then put in the tip jar, smiling faintly at his good action. "Bonnie" didn't seemed so happy about it, though.</p><p>"Jesus! Really?!" she exclaimed, furious. Then, completely unprompted and with more aggression Paul ever thought her capable of, she began to sing: "I'VE BEEN BREWING ALL YOUR COFFEE-"</p><p>"Oh, no, no, no. No, no, no," Paul interrupted, waving his hands to make her stop before he entered into fight-or-flight mode in the middle of the coffee shop. "Uh, I'm sorry. No, I don't need you to sing. I just tip because, you know, people should tip," he added awkwardly, waiting (and hoping) for her approval. He really was just trying to be nice, there was nothing he wanted <em>less</em> than to seeing her sing.</p><p>It seemed that was enough to water down the hostility, because she smiled, thanked him for the tip, and proceeded to rant about every single thing Paul himself considered impossible to bear in that place: the shitty paying job, the assholes that went there for their coffee ("Not that you're an asshole. Or maybe <em>you</em> are, what'd you tip?"), the miserable tips she had to split with five other people, her boss Nora, and Zoey, the twentysomething theater girl that was her manager and who was overly excited about the owner's idea of making them sing for barely 25 cents a song.</p><p>Of all the things Paul had imagined he could bond over with “Bonnie”, his hate for the local production of <em>Gospel</em> he was forced to see last summer had never crossed his mind, but there he was, sharing awful jokes with her about how absolutely terrible the play had been and laughing together because of it. This was going so splendidly well. Good job, Paul.</p><p>"I don't like musicals," he confessed at the first chance he got. "Watching people sing and dance makes me very uncomfortable."</p><p>She quirked an eyebrow, handing him his paper coffee cup. "Well, then why did you come to the singing coffee shop?" she asked, knowingly. "You know, there's a Starbucks across the street."</p><p>Whoops, busted! What was he going to say? The truth?! ... Actually yes, that didn't seemed so bad, did it? The truth it is! "Well, you know, some things are worth it," he murmured and it wasn't until the words left his mouth he noticed just how vague and shady they'd sounded; he awkwardly took a sip of his coffee, trying to think of something he could say before she got his words twisted. "Like, damn good coffee," he blurted out at least and she smiled, which he decided to interpret as a sign that she'd believed him.</p><p>"I see you in here all the time, don't I?" she asked after a few seconds of intense scrutiny that felt like hours. "What's your name?"</p><p>"Paul."</p><p>She smiled again. Paul didn't think he'd ever made anyone smile as much as her, did that mean they were friends now? He sure hoped so.</p><p>"Hi, Paul. I'm Emma."</p><p> </p><p>Paul didn't have a chance to say anything to that after because they were rudely interrupted by a young customer who hadn't yet received his hot chocolate, but Paul was content with the fact that he now knew her name. As he walked back home later that day after work, he mapped out an entire strategy im his head to secure his friendship with her, strategy that he almost forgot when that annoying Greenpeace girl intercepted him in the middle of the street to reproach him his apparent disinterest in saving the planet. When the storm fell upon them and forced them to run for refuge, Paul thought back to that day at Beanies, at the progress he'd made with his awkwardness to speak to other people, and how what others had always rejected him for had helped him make a new friend.</p><p>Emma. Her name was Emma, and Paul wondered for a moment if she remembered him from the day he went to see her in <em>Brigadoon</em> almost fifteen years ago. He made a mental note of asking her the next day when he went for his daily cup of black coffee and prepared for bed.</p><p>It was a shame the meteor chose that same night to hit Hatchetfield, destroying the Starlight Theater in downtown, and spreading an alien spore that made everyone in contact with it sing.</p><p>Paul's worst nightmare was out there now, waiting for him to wake up.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Because Paul reacting to every song in this musical, particularly <a href="https://youtu.be/7eMA2467kD0">La Dee Dah Dah Day</a>, is basically me in the face of romance. Just... no.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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